What does Sargent (1916) tell a writer to include, lead with and leave out of a synopsis, and which parts are his claims and which only his examples?
Sargent (Ch. XXVIII paras 7, 9-11, 13-14, 17) says to lead with the most striking fact rather than a generic setup, to give the one great essential point of the story, to avoid scene-by-scene retelling, never to promise what the action lacks, to name and tag characters in the synopsis, and not to add a note saying the story cannot be told in synopsis. He also suggests opening with a claim of novelty. The rules are his claims; the Henry Prichard, Mary and Jim, Ethan Dodge and Mammon's-daughter passages are his illustrative examples, written for the book rather than drawn from sold scripts.
Sargent (Ch. XXVIII paras 7, 9-11, 13-14, 17) says to lead with the most striking fact rather than a generic setup, to give the one great essential point of the story, to avoid scene-by-scene retelling, never to promise what the action lacks, to name and tag characters in the synopsis, and not to add a note saying the story cannot be told in synopsis. He also suggests opening with a claim of novelty. The rules are his claims; the Henry Prichard, Mary and Jim, Ethan Dodge and Mammon's-daughter passages are his illustrative examples, written for the book rather than drawn from sold scripts.
Curator qualifications: Synopsis writing rules verified; named passages are his invented examples.
Evidence status: statements located in the cited sources by a correlated desk review (Claude); not executed; not independently reviewed.
Structured fields
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"citations": [
{
"url": "https://archive.org/stream/techniqueofphoto00sarg/techniqueofphoto00sarg_djvu.txt",
"note": "sar.flat (a3cff7eb) offsets per candidate; sar.flat regex spot checks"
}
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}Evidence claims
- [sourced_fact] Sargent (Ch. XXVIII paras 7, 9-11, 13-14, 17) says to lead with the most striking fact rather than a generic setup, to give the one great essential point of the story, to avoid scene-by-scene retelling, never to promise what the action lacks, to name and tag characters in the synopsis, and not to add a note saying the story cannot be told in synopsis. He also suggests opening with a claim of novelty. The rules are his claims; the Henry Prichard, Mary and Jim, Ethan Dodge and Mammon's-daughter passages are his illustrative examples, written for the book rather than drawn from sold scripts. · locator: sar.flat (a3cff7eb) offsets per candidate; sar.flat regex spot checks source
Rights
| component | license | hosting | redistribution | modification | training | Evidence and notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| documentation | unknown | permitted | permitted | unknown | unknown | Applies to this original summary only, not to the cited sources. |